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Originally published in Science Express on 23 July 2001
Science 27 July 2001:
Vol. 293. no. 5530, pp. 694 - 698
DOI: 10.1126/science.1060638
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Reports

Modeling Household Transmission of American Trypanosomiasis

Joel E. Cohen,1* Ricardo E. Gürtler2

American trypanosomiasis, or Chagas disease, caused by the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi and transmitted by blood-feeding triatomine bugs, is a chronic, frequently fatal infection that is common in Latin America. Neither adequate drugs nor a vaccine is available. A mathematical model calibrated to detailed household data from three villages in northwest Argentina shows that householders could greatly reduce the risk of human infection by excluding domestic animals, especially infected dogs, from bedrooms; removing potential refuges for bugs from walls and ceilings; and using domestically applied insecticides. Low-cost, locally practicable environmental management combined with intermittent use of insecticides can sustainably control transmission of T. cruzi to humans in rural Argentina and probably elsewhere.

1 Laboratory of Populations, Rockefeller University and Columbia University, 1230 York Avenue, Box 20, New York, NY 10021, USA.
2 Laboratorio de Ecología General, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Ciudad Universitaria, C1428EHA Buenos Aires, Argentina.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: cohen{at}rockefeller.edu

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